


Alternate Ends

by melonbutterfly



Series: Never Cease to Fly [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Heartbreaking, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of alternate ends for Say Goodbye to Yesterday that didn't actually come to pass but... might have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forget-me-not

**Author's Note:**

> This is _entirely_ [mortenavida's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mortenavida) fault, for giving me ideas.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is no logical explanation for this, JARVIS has no suggestion either, so Tony does what he does best with feelings he can't deal with: ignore it.

Tony has had a nagging feeling all day, a mix of hangover nausea and déjà vu. It started after he took a short nap before the installation of the arc reactor with Pepper; JARVIS had woken him up and for a moment Tony had almost gotten sick, the nausea had been so strong. After that initial moment it had dissipated quickly, however, leaving Tony confused and feeling strangely lost, like he was forgetting something, like something was missing.

He's able to ignore it during the setting up of the arc reactor, and then he's distracted by how not at all surprised he is by Coulson's presence. And then he spreads out the data onto his screens and looks at the blurry security camera shot of the person who broke into a SHIELD base, destroyed it very thoroughly and stole a couple of agents in the process.

That is when he does throw up, all over the floor, doesn't even have the time to make for a bowl, much less the toilet. He can't explain it and it freaks him out as he spits the sour taste out of his mouth, how sick he feels, how… how _empty_. Like he's missing something huge, something infinitely important, and it's too late, the floor has been pulled out from under him and he's in free fall.

There is no logical explanation for this, JARVIS has no suggestion either, so Tony does what he does best with feelings he can't deal with: ignore it. Nevermind that, when he reads up on thermonuclear astrophysics, everything comes to him strangely easily; almost unnaturally so, even for him. Nevermind that he feels barely any aggression towards Rogers, despite the dislike he harbors for everything the man represents, or towards Natasha, who has played him like an instrument. Nevermind that the thought of brainwashed Barton and the sight of Coulson makes something in him twinge painfully, urgently, almost guiltily, even though there is absolutely nothing he could have done about Barton, even though Coulson is perfectly fine, supernaturally calm and bland as usual.

It all comes to a head in Stuttgart. He makes an entrance the way he's wont to but he doesn't feel the way about it he usually would; there's barely any fun in it. He shoots at the alien who vaunts himself a god, has people kneel for him like it's the Dark Ages again, and ignores the strange impulse to bodily fly into him; it's a ridiculous idea anyway.

The guy – Loki, of Asgard, with glorious purpose – looks at Tony with a strange expression, and when Tony takes the mask of for a moment his eyes go wide; he almost looks human, there's something shocking in his face, but it's gone the next moment, and Tony and Rogers lead the guy onto the jet, don't quite know what to do with themselves or him.

They're silent, all three of them, Natasha flying in the front, and Tony replays Loki's expression in front of his inner eye again and again, trying to figure out what the hell it means, why the hell he's so obsessed with it. Eventually he has JARVIS replay the footage inside his helmet in slow-motion, freeze it at the pertaining moment, and… taken out of context, that expression couldn't be anything else but heartbreak.

Which is utterly ridiculous, of course, so Tony tries to look for something else, makes an argument for fear, perhaps even grief (there is no possible way he can make it into anger; the eyes don't make for it at all, bluish-green and something very painful about them), and then he clocks in on desperation and JARVIS says, quietly, that that's what he would have picked, if not the heartbreak.

Desperation. It makes Tony's heart clench and he _doesn't know why_ , it's driving him crazy, how he's feeling things that make absolutely no sense, so he shoves it all aside, fixes the mission at the forefront of his mind: save Barton, figure out what the alien is doing with the tesseract, hopefully get it back. It doesn't matter whether the guy is scared or sad or desperate or even heartbroken; all that matters is that he's here, messing Tony's home up, and that does not fly in Tony Stark's book, not at all.

When everything is over (and nobody came out unscathed, some didn't come out at all, Tony almost got a front seat ticket to death by nuclear bomb in space, which is certainly a new one, even for him) they go to arrest the guy, still in the tower, as JARVIS assures him.

He's lying in a crater in the form of his body, and the Hulk did say "smash", but Tony didn't take it quite so literal – and he laughs because come on, it's comical.

The laugh dies in his throat when Loki turns his head to look at him – at _him_ , not at his brother, or Barton who would still be a more likely option than Tony. This time Tony doesn't need to thoroughly and repeatedly analyze video footage to figure out an expression he has already recognized even if the context doesn't match; if nothing else, he's seen it before, has stared at it in the intimate microcosm of his helmet, trying to give it any other name.

Loki looks at him, and there is no mistaking the heartbreak, the way Tony's belly clenches at the sight of it.

It makes no sense, so he blinks, averts his eyes, pushes it away. He has a city to rebuild.


	2. not how it's supposed to be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Tony comes to he's lying in a soft, comfortable bed and he's deliciously pain-free. The latter makes him complacent for a while because he clearly remembers the pain he was in when he lost consciousness. He thinks about it for a while, carefully tensing different muscle groups a little to check whether there are any twinges in his shoulder or ribs or anywhere else at all, but nothing. He's been completely fixed up. Aesir medicine is amazing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This diverges from the original scene during the fight with Thanos; Tony gets knocked out when he's thrown into the wall and this is what he wakes up to.

When Tony comes to he's lying in a soft, comfortable bed and he's deliciously pain-free. The latter makes him complacent for a while because he clearly remembers the pain he was in when he lost consciousness. He thinks about it for a while, carefully tensing different muscle groups a little to check whether there are any twinges in his shoulder or ribs or anywhere else at all, but nothing. He's been completely fixed up. Aesir medicine is amazing.

His contentment comes to an abrupt end when he realizes that he's alone in bed. He opens his eyes and looks around, vaguely hoping that the bed is merely too big and that the only reason he can't feel Loki is because he's lying too far away, but that's not the case; he's completely alone. The room he's in isn't Loki's either, it's neat and bare and empty.

Frowning, Tony climbs out of bed on shaky legs. There's probably a very simple explanation – he was pretty hurt, they probably put him in their version of a hospital room or something. Loki likely is in another room, he was probably injured as well. He must have fought his own people while under Thanos' control.

At the memory of that, Tony balls his hand into a fist. Thanos got the drop on him and it completely pisses him off; he totally forgot about the guy. _Forgot_. How could he? After everything the asshole put Loki through, after Loki's goddamn _warnings_ , for fuck's sake.

Wrapping the sheet around himself – he's naked, and fuck if that doesn't weird him out; somebody must have taken his armor and clothes off and the latter, okay, he can deal with that, but his armor? That shit is private. They probably damaged it irreparably, which isn't exactly ideal but not surprising either, but what worries Tony much more is the possibility of not getting it back. He wouldn't leave his armor in the hands of earth scientists, and he most certainly isn't keen on leaving it in the hands of Aesir scientists – magicians, whatever – either.

Tapping out of the room on bare feet, Tony finds himself in a long hall empty except for two guards flanking the door to his room. They're either guarding him or _guarding_ him; he can't tell either way but he doesn't care much right now. "Can either of you tell me where Loki is?"

One of them – one with curly, blond hair braided into a waist-long ponytail, wow, these people take hair _serious_ – glances at his colleague before clearing his throat. "Down the hall, left turn, third door on the right, Prince Consort."

Frowning at the respectful tone of voice (one he hasn't heard once in all the time he spent here, Loki wasn't kidding when he said these people are assholes, not that he put it like that) Tony thanks him and follows the directions. In front of the polished, pure white door he hesitates, wondering whether he should knock. Eventually he decides he's acting like a ridiculous, lovestruck teenager, knocks briefly and then opens the door.

The first thing he sees is Thor, sitting by a sort of bed without bedposts or sheets. At Tony's entrance he looks up, and his expression sends a chill through Tony's body; he looks _wrecked_. His cheeks are red and raw and tears are running down them unchecked, eyes red and bloodshot, and his expression speaks of utter devastation.

Tony takes all this in in under a second, eyes flicking to the bed and back to Thor. He opens his mouth to ask what the heck is going on, did Odin die or what?, when he registers what he saw on the bed.

He looks again. It's Loki, still in the very battle armor he wore the last time Tony saw him, knocked out from the impact of Tony's special brand of cognitive recalibration. His face is smooth and unmarred by wounds or bruises, his eyes are closed, and his hands are folded on his belly.

He is not breathing.

"No," Tony hears someone say, voice cracking and pleading, and realizes it's his own only a moment later but that's not what's wrong here. Something is very, very wrong here.

As if pulled forwards by an invisible hand Tony walks towards the bed, unable to take his eyes off Loki's face. "No."

"Tony-" Thor starts, voice wobbly.

"No!" Tony screams, wrenching his eyes away from Loki. "This isn't really happening. Tell me you're just waiting for some sort of- some sort of magical orange to be fetched or whatever! Tell me it's not happening!"

Just like that, Thor's face crumbles and he starts to sob. "I cannot," he whimpers. "Oh, how I wish I could, my friend, but I cannot."

"Thor!" Tony bellows, stepping up to him and putting both hands on Thor's shoulders to shake him. The sheet glides off his body to expose his bare skin to the air, but he doesn't notice. "You can't give up on him just like that, he's your _brother_!"

But Thor just keeps crying. "There is nothing anyone can do, Tony. Even the Aesir have not managed to conquer death, just to stave it off for a very long time."

Energy leaving his body as if leeched out of him, Tony's hands drop numbly off Thor's shoulders. He tries really fucking hard not to look at the bed again but his eyes are drawn there as if pulled in by some sort of magnetic tractor beam.

Loki looks as if he were asleep, peaceful, calm, and yet his chest isn't lifting with his breathing, and his skin is too waxy to allow anyone to truly mistake his condition for sleep.

Tony has to clear his throat twice before he can speak, and even then his voice is thready, weak. "What happened?" Because the last time Tony saw him Loki was still alive, he's sure of that. He checked after he flew into him and Loki was fine, just unconscious, and Tony clearly remembers staring at him after Thanos had thrown him into the wall. He'd lost conscious quickly after that, but he had seen Loki breathe, he's absolutely sure of that.

"We cannot know for sure," Thor says, still crying and making no attempt to suppress it. "Father stipulates that the Mad Titan's hold on Loki was so strong that when Thanos was rendered unconscious, the snapping of their connection shattered Loki's mind. After that, there was nothing we could possibly have done and his body soon succumbed to death."

Tony just stares at Loki's body. That morning, just that morning, a mere few hours ago, he had kissed that mouth, had kissed Loki awake, and he had been kissed back, _he had been kissed back_. Loki had cupped his face and pressed his lips to Tony's once, twice, then peppering his face with kisses like tiny blessings, benedictions, confessions. Tony had giggled and wriggled like an idiot because he'd been embarrassed, this isn't the sort of thing he normally does, and Loki had smiled him, wide and carefree despite all the crap that was weighing him down.

"I wish to bathe with you again," Loki had said, tone nothing short of imperious even though they didn't have the time, and Tony had grinned and made some lewd suggestions and they had promised, tonight. _Tonight_.

It's tonight, but there won't be any baths, and certainly none of the other things Tony had suggested. This isn't how it was supposed to be.

Tony can't look away from Loki. With shaky knees he steps up to the bed – that surely is not truly a bed – until his shins bump into the soft mattress.

"Why aren't we looping?" he hears himself ask as if from far away, but as soon as the words leave his mouth the thoughts slam into him like a freight train. Why aren't they? They should be. They've looped every time one of them died, instantaneously as far as they could ascertain. But maybe they were wrong? Maybe the universe needs a moment to recalibrate itself before going back to some sort of beginning? It's not like either of them could have told.

Though Loki had said they had looped back immediately when he had snapped Tony's neck more or less accidentally, back at the very beginning of their working together. But maybe that's just when Tony is the one to die? They hadn't looped back immediately when Tony had dropped Loki from the helicarrier. Granted, Loki hadn't died immediately; it had taken some time before the cage had sunken deep enough into the ocean to cave under the water pressure. But there _is_ a margin of error, there _is_. They will surely loop back soon. They must.

"Tony," Thor says, voice tortured. "Loki has been gone for several hours. Father is certain that with Thanos' capture, the disaster that would have befallen the realms has been averted. Destiny is on course again."

"It isn't!" Tony snaps. They have to loop back. They have to! He gestures towards Loki's still figure – too still, far too still, it's nauseating, _wrong_. "How is this _on course_?!"

Thor's voice is devastatingly gentle. "Loki fulfilled his purpose, Tony. As much as I grieve for him, as much as I wish he were still among us, he has completed the task destiny assigned to him."

"No!" Tony whirls around and shoves at Thor, not that it does him any good; the guy is like a rock. "He was supposed to be- it was his turn now! He was supposed to be free, to do whatever he wants, to be _happy_! He can't be dead!"

But Thor just looks at him, face a mix of grief, sympathy and pity. _Pity_. "I am so sorry, my friend."

"Get out," Tony whispers, and then, when Thor doesn't move, he screams it. "Get out!"

Slowly, Thor nods. "Very well. I shall see to the funeral preparations."

Tony almost punches him for that, but he holds himself together because Thor leaves, closing the white door after himself quietly. Belatedly, Tony realizes that he never shut it, anyone walking by could have heard, but he doesn't give a fuck.

He turns back to Loki and stares. "You asshole," he whispers, eyes wide and blinking rapidly, because fuck if he's going to cry. "This isn't how it was supposed to be, how could you just-" But they never made each other any promises. They never spoke at all of any time after the trial, not even in the abstract.

Loki never made Tony any promises, so there are no promises broken.

A sob wrangles from his throat and Tony slaps both hands on his mouth as if he could push it back in, as if he could keep the ones that follow inside, but it's absolutely futile. His vision goes so blurry he can't see at all anymore, and the floor is cold and hard under his knees when he sinks down on it. This is not how it was supposed to be at all.

Eventually Thor comes and pulls him away. He brings Tony back to his temporary room and says, grief marring his face, "Loki is with his daughter now."

That's apparently supposed to comfort Tony.

There is no funeral, not how Tony understands it. They burn Loki's body – Tony keeps thinking how ironic that is, Loki the Frost Giant is burnt, it's almost funny – and only Thor, Frigga, Odin and Tony are present. All of them are completely silent as they watch Loki's wrapped body turn into so much smoke and ashes.

Aesir do not grieve as Tony understands it. There will be a feast in Loki's honor tomorrow, and they will talk about the great things Loki has done. Tony doesn't attend; he can't. Loki hated these people and they hated him, if he hears just one person who sneered at them a couple of days ago say something nice about Loki he's going to snap.

Instead, he goes home. "Sir," JARVIS says, a bit hesitantly because he clearly can tell something is wrong, but having no idea what and with Tony not volunteering any information, he glosses it over. "Director Fury left several urgent messages."

"What does he want?" Not knowing what to do with himself, Tony sits down on the sofa. He doesn't have any luggage; his things are in Loki's rooms. He just couldn't go in there to retrieve them, tangled with Loki's things like Loki is still alive, maybe even smelling of him.

"He wishes to speak to Mr. Loki about-"

Tony slaps a hand on his mouth and stops listening. When he has managed to regain his composure JARVIS has fallen silent. "Don't ever," Tony croaks, "say his name again."

It's stupid and ridiculous, but he just doesn't want to hear it.

"Sir," JARVIS says very quietly, a question.

Tony closes his eyes. "Loki is dead. I don't want to talk to anybody. Especially not Pepper."

Instead, he goes and destroys all his weapons, deletes them completely from existence. If anyone ever needs him for them again they can stuff it, _destiny_ included.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Trust Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/715533) by [DarkWaterFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWaterFalls/pseuds/DarkWaterFalls)




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